The Life in My Years

An anthology of life

“We’re not gonna fix it.” ~ Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) That was the gist of Tim Burchett’s response to the killing of three, nine year old children and three members of the staff at The Covenant School, in Nashville, Tennessee. Given that there have been more mass shootings in America in the year 2023, than …

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The fourth in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. From Sonora Junction, Highway 395 heads due east before dipping to the south and finally cutting back east to enter Bridgeport. Crane your view to the right and you see the picture of green, brown and yellow grazing land backdropped by …

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The third in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. Between Knight’s Ferry and Chinese Camp is 21 miles of rolling ranchland. Out here the land is split into parcels, each section defined by the brainchild of an Illinois farmer named Joseph Glidden. Glidden’s invention would forever put its stamp on …

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The second in a series of occasional posts about tripping along U.S. Highway 395. To explore Highway 395, you first have to get to 395. We’ll be picking up 395 at Sonora Junction, at the terminus of Highway 108, just east of a twisting descent from the Sonora Pass. We’re eastbound cutting across the width …

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“Beg to report sir, the good ship California is taking on water and is listing to port.” *** “It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man is snoring …” It’s been raining and pouring but this old man hasn’t been snoring. He’s a light sleeper, even lighter when anything that isn’t tied down is blowing around …

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“Out with the old and in with the new,” goes the old New Year’s saying. The year 2022 decided that it would not go gracefully. I watched 2022’s final stormy afternoon from inside Peet’s Coffee at the local supermarket mall. The Bay Area was shooting the rapids, metaphorically speaking, of an atmospheric river. Atmospheric river. …

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Cora posed the question sometime during Thanksgiving weekend. It was the never before posed query that put normalcy into doubt. “Are we getting a tree this year?” She might just as well have asked if we planned on breathing. I’d actually been asking myself the same question since the holiday season began, sometime back in …

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A chapter in an occasional series of posts documenting an autumn 2021 road trip through the Midwest.  A continuation of the post, “The Road to Lansing and the Divine Revelation” “I just feel like the most important conversations I’ve had in my life have been at a diner counter.” ~ Ramy Youssef October 23rd, Lansing, …

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Being October, and being that Halloween is less than two weeks away, it’s only appropriate to add another graveyard episode to the Monthly Monochrome series (for the previous charnel chapter click this link). As I indicated in my previous graveyard post, a graveyard can be a cemetery, but a cemetery can’t be a graveyard until …

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This week Tina of Travels and Trifles has challenged us to a Treasure Hunt. She’s proposed a list of treasure items which includes: A pet or pets (yours or someone else’s) The moon or the sun (extra credit for both in one image) Clouds (extra credit if you also include rain or snow) A reflection …

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